Husband, defense team doubt Las Vegas mom slaying was road rage

LAS VEGAS — Robert Meyers thinks his 44-year-old wife realized she was in danger, and was fatally wounded after trying to lure a vehicle and motorist who threatened her away from her home.

That's not road rage, that's intentional, Meyers said in an interview at a coffee shop after a court appearance by the suspect, his 19-year-old neighbor, Erich Milton Nowsch Jr.

"My wife was followed home and murdered," Meyers said.

Nowsch was arrested Friday, a little more than a week after Tammy Meyers was fatally wounded by gunfire that police say came from a silver car that pursued Meyers and her 22-year-old son, Brandon Meyers, to the cul-de-sac outside their home.

Nowsch's lawyers, brothers Conrad Claus and Augustus Claus, said outside court they also don't believe the case involved road rage. They said they want to review police reports and video evidence before talking more about Nowsch's defense.

Meyers' theory adds yet another dimension to a case already marked by stunning revelations and conflicting accounts from police and the Meyers family.

Initially, the family said Tammy Meyers was shot in the head after a confrontation with another motorist while she drove her teenage daughter home from a late-night driving lesson at a neighborhood school. The public was told that Brandon Meyers grabbed his gun and came out of the house, firing back at the fleeing silver car.

Last week, family members and police revealed that Tammy Meyers dropped her daughter at home and went back out with her son and the family's green Buick Park Avenue sedan to find the motorist who frightened her earlier.

What followed was a tire-squealing confrontation with a silver car and gunfire several blocks from the Meyers home. No one was injured.

Then, the fatal shooting on the cul-de-sac several houses from the Meyers home.

"I don't know what she saw," Robert Meyers said Monday. "She's dead. I can't ask her. But this was intentional — to kill the person in the green car."

Las Vegas police aren't commenting about the changing accounts, and aren't addressing whether Tammy Meyers' death resulted from a random road-rage shooting as it first appeared.

Capt. Christopher Tomaino told the media Friday that police were still looking for an accomplice who was with Nowsch, and questions about the case will eventually be answered.

Robert Meyers, 49, was out of state when the shooting happened. He said Monday his wife and Nowsch knew each other — well enough for the teen to hitch up his saggy shorts when Tammy Meyers approached him in the neighborhood park, so she wouldn't have to tell him to do so.

It's not clear if they recognized each other during the shootings. Robert Meyers said Nowsch was probably familiar with the family's Buick, but might not have seen it since the windows were tinted dark last summer.

Nowsch is charged with murder, attempted murder and firing a weapon from a vehicle. A March 10 preliminary hearing will determine if he should stand trial. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson would then decide whether to seek the death penalty.

Police said Nowsch told friends he was at the park and became alarmed by a vehicle he thought was following him, so he called a friend to pick him up.

Las Vegas police say Nowsch bragged to his friends several hours after the shooting that he "got those kids, they were after me, and I got them."

Nowsch showed his friends a .45-caliber handgun and told them he fired several shots in the first encounter and 22 shots in the cul-de-sac, according to the police report.

Robert Meyers and police said Brandon Meyers fired three shots during the second shooting. It wasn't clear if he hit a silver Audi with Nowsch and at least one other person inside, police said.

Nowsch lived with his single mother and her 1-month-old girl about a block from the Meyers family home.

Tammy Meyers served as a mother figure to youngsters about the same age as her children, now 15 to 22 years old, Meyers said, and two Meyers sons attended high school with Nowsch.

Meyers said that at least once, Tammy Meyers gave the teen $20 when he said he was hungry. Meyers also recalled Nowsch earning pocket money washing cars outside the Meyers family home.

The teen and the neighborhood mom may have seen each other in passing the weekend of Feb. 7-8, when Tammy Meyers walked the family dogs in the park where Nowsch often sat at a picnic bench with other teens, Robert Meyers said.

"Bunch of troublemakers," Robert Meyers said. "I wouldn't allow my kids to hang out with them." But he denied there was any bad blood.

Las Vegas police spokesman Larry Hadfield said investigators are still trying to locate the silver vehicle's driver, who has not been identified.